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Trent Reznor Says "Steal My Music"
THX-1138 writes "A few months ago, Trent Reznor (frontman of the band Nine Inch Nails), was in Australia doing an interview when he commented on the outrageous prices of CDs there. Apparently now his label, Universal Media Group is angry at him for having said that. During a concert last night, he told fans, '...Has anyone seen the price come down? Okay, well, you know what that means — STEAL IT. Steal away. Steal and steal and steal some more and give it to all your friends and keep on stealin'. Because one way or another these mother****ers will get it through their head that they're ripping people off and that's not right.'"
I just wonder one thing: has he stopped accepting royalties from the CD sales, or canceled his distribution contracts? Without that step, this is a fairly empty gesture from a very rich man.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
Trent Reznor - "Do What You Want Because A Pirate Is Free ..."
Can't wait until Nine Inch Nails covers that...
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
This was during a concert, not an interview. A YouTube clip of him talking about it.
Send him some mail. It'd be interesting to see if he'd do it... and if he does it'd be a pretty powerful gesture to the music industry (I think we all know which gesture ;) ).
(rot13) rpbzbab@tznvy.pbz
IIRC, his contract is going to be up soon anyways, and if this is how he feels his company is treating him I doubt he'll sign a new one. With the innovative storytelling he's done with Year Zero, and essentially making open-source music by releasing the original recording data so that anyone can remix it, it'll be interesting to see how he goes about releasing new music without a large distribution network that the major label gives him.
In Soviet Russia you don't steal music, music steals you.
Nothing can stop him now.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
... I wonder if this statement makes their music essentially public domain?
Personally, I'd be surprised if UMG (and every other *IAA member) doesn't take away or severely limit every one of their signed artists' rights to control, or even have a say in, the means and methods of distribution for their works for this very reason...
-AC
motherbuckers?
I'm a rabbit startled by the headlights of life
"..Has anyone seen the price come down? Okay, well, you know what that means -- INFRINGE IT. Infringe away. Infringe and infringe and infringe some more and give it to all your friends and keep on infringin'. Because one way or another these mother****ers will get it through their head that they're ripping people off and that's not right.'"
Fixed
Yeah, you stole that same bullshit speech from the RIAA
From who? Universal? Robbing the majors is the thing to do these days.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Back to the same old B.S. that has caused turmoil in Hollywood since I can remember.
Artist makes contract with "BigCo", and "BigCo" agrees to a % of the "sales" as they define them, and then "BigCo" sets the price of the movie, book, or music where they want to get their profits they want. That was the way of the 20th Century.
In the 19th Century, artists of all types made money on direct sales, direct live acts and there was little other than a shop that might sell works for a % of the sale.
Now I wonder if the 21st Century Artist is not moving back to the 19th Century methods, where the artist controls things more, since it is the Artist inspiring the viewers, listeners, readers of his work that counts for quality artistic expression. If Artists have something hot, that your subset of the human race likes, the Internet allows those mutual groups to find each other in lots of ways.
I think the Internet is leveling the playing field, and artists are likely to see a resurgence of interest...provided they have quality work.
If you can steal a Ferrari in such a way that the original owner still has his Ferrari and suffers no loss from your theft, then more power to ya.
I love Trent and think he's a very talented musician, but I'm wondering if someone's back on heroin again. I agree that the music industry is ripping off the artists and the listeners, but when you sign a contract, you agree to many things and it's doubtful that the company with which the agreement was made is going to look fondly on any attempt to decrease what they were promised (i.e. profits).
Face it Trent, you've still gotta make a few records for them. Do what Prince did, paint 'slave' on your face and release a few "best of NIN" albums and then do whatever you want on your own label or just sell your stuff online, we'll buy it.
Guess publishers were smarter 2 scores ago.
Steal! Steal! Steal!
...what the Anti-Christ is to the Catholics. :-P
Rock on Trent, rock on.
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed H
If you can fucking download one - then knock yourself out asshole.
Right down his alley.
If he meant this, he'd be busy paying his penalty to break contract. Otherwise it would just lure people into the RIAA clutches. "Trent told me to download it" can't hold up forever if the contractual locks are still in place.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Not another reason for NIN fans to grow even more angsty. That's the last thing we need. He did it for the press.
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And is not afraid to go against the labels' will, e.g. see the history behind an eastern egg on the "Broken" album:
He's already hit the top of his career. His fans will find him even if he never pays another dollar in marketing.
:)
In fact, his hard-core fans will probably be happier with him if he never pays another dollar in marketing.
The problem is that the industry is structured to cash in on people like Trent who make millions.
Then there are the one-hit-wonders. Use them up and spit them out.
Then there are the hordes looking for a chance to make it big. They can give away their stuff until they're signed. Then the labels own them.
Can you please cite the judicial order or legislative ruling that establishes copyright infringement as equivalent to theft?
And, on topic, what about the big fuzzy gray area where the creator of a work still has free expression to say things like "steal this book" or "my agent is a dick nose and I want out of my contract?"
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
It might just work... I'm a rabid Pearl Jam fan, largely because they allow their amateur-taped concert recordings to be given away between fans. I've heard a LOT of good Pearl Jam shows, and in turn, I have bought many CD's because I've heard so many, mostly shitty, recordings of their shows, and I want to have some really good, clear recordings of their shows.
Regardless, music distribution companies simply add no value any more. When a company doesn't add any kind of value, they die. It happened with buggy whips, vacuum-tube manufacturers, and countless other industries. Right now, we can also see the slow death of Realtors because most, if not all, real estate information can be found easily for free. That's life. Adapt or die.
I don't respond to AC's.
While I agree with Trent that the music companies are totally screwing the people who want to buy the music, stealing it will only cause the music labels to want to up the price of the cds to recover what was "stolen" by people downloading and sharing the music. More power to him, but I fail to see how this is going to make those motherfuckers see the light.
In this age of the global free network there's no reason for artists to include any middlemen, only to bash them for whatever draconian policies they have...
And customers whine too. Please stop. And start voting with the greenbacks. That's the only language the corporations understand. MAFIAA is your child. You pay their wages.
he doesn't care anymore.
When he's free of the shackles of his label I think I'll buy even more of his music. He knows music enriches lives not just the wallets of corporations.
Shh.
But doesn't stealing something require taking it *WITHOUT* permission?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
It's quite easy for Trent to say this - because if he never saw another penny through record sales, it wouldn't hurt him - he's making his money touring and his money from selling merch. Increasingly, that's where the money is for the artist. And as long as folk are turning up at the shows, the sales of the record don't matter so much, because often they're not where the artist's payday is, that's on the road.
The label would just keep the money. That's not really a punishment for them "Do what I say or I'm going to give you MORE money!". If he could force the label to give the money to the consumers, ok then maybe I could see a point, but he can't so it would just be giving them more.
Rather, he seems to be encouraging his fans to not buy his music, which deprives him of royalties, but also deprives the label of money.
Windows 3.1x calc: 3.11 - 3.10 = 0.00
While I agree with him on this, it is wrong to tell people to steal when you are a role model like he is. I suppose he justified stealing his music by explaining the situation with prices and record labels, but that does not make it right. What next, the CEO from Dell gets leaves and tells everyone that the computers they are buying are way overpriced and that people should try to steal them instead of paying that price? That is a slippery slope obviously. Instead, he should instruct people not to buy it at the price it is and let the people, themselves, figure out how they want to go about not paying for it.
The correct thing it do here is vote with your dollar - do not pay the prices if they upset you. That said, stealing the goods instead of paying for them is not voting with your dollar, it is stealing. See how that works?
Invexi - a Phoenix, AZ based web design and web development company.
I'm told he took a long break from recording after Pretty Hate Machine until his record contract expired because he didn't like the terms he signed. No love for the system from that guy.
Here is the wiki section on his issues with the cooperate world:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Inch_Nails#Corporate_entanglements
-- http://thegirlorthecar.com funny dating game for guys
If you can steal a Ferrari in such a way that the original owner still has his Ferrari and suffers no loss from your theft, then more power to ya.
/. argument why copying music/video/software is not theft. (I realize you are not making the argument here) I think it is wrong - even if you could magically replicate a Ferrari - the creator of the original has not been compensated for his work in creating it - and so suffers a loss. That to me is theft. As a side note, the ability to create unlimited perfect copies reduces the value of the original paid for Ferrari - so that person has suffered a loss in resale value - which
This is one of the standard
Now, you can argue that person does not deserve to be compensated for copies produced by others and so the law should be changed; but that is a different position than "anything I can take without cost to the owner is not theft and should be legal."
that position, of course, means the GPL cannot exist - because you can take the code without cost from the original owner and should be able to do whatever you want with it regardless of the creator's wishes. To use the corollary to the "It's not theft argument" - "I would not have bought it anyway so they aren't really losing money" - if a company would not use GPL code unless the code modify it without redistributing the source when the distribute the resulting code they would not make nay changes so your not losing any enhancements since they would not do them if they had to comply with the GPL.
Do I think copyright law is out of date and needs correction? Yes, but silly not theft arguments detract from the real issue.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Now, they may start suing the artists, for encouraging copyright infringement; then they'll have neither customers nor artists producing music. Countdown to complete industry implosion continues....
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
if he can make a song out of my manifesto O:)
It never gets tiresome seeing copyright proponents making material physical theft comparisons utterly pwned. If material property could be copied, world hunger and every scarcity would be instantly solved.
what you think of Trent or this latest bit of backlash on his part. The important thing is that artists now have someone to rally behind without being the 'frontman' as it were. Similar to how iPod and Apple were the first, other's followed. I hope that Trent is able to parlay this into a continuing and successful career move, and that others follow.
He, among other things, is right about the RIAA and their members.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
He can distribute as much as he wants, as often as he wants, and people by the millions will help him do it. It's called P2P. LimeWire, BitTorrent, and even Kazaa. And nobody can legally interfere, because if they have his permission, it isn't stealing.
(By the way, it should be pointed out that is NOT "stealing" anyway! Copying copyrighted music is legally a completely different animal. If you call it "stealing" when it is not, then you have already bought into the bastards' propaganda. Yes, there IS a big difference, legally and ethically, between copyright infringement and stealing.)
Seriously. Stop with the stupid "In Soviet Russia " crap.
It's not fucking funny anymore, never was that funny, and proves you're just a fucking retard.
Can you "steal" my Ferrari in a way that doesn't deprive me of it?
Can you please cite the judicial order or legislative ruling that establishes copyright infringement as equivalent to theft?
;-)
Pfft...who needs judicial orders or legislative rulings when you can have wild speculation?
ZuluPad, the wiki notepad on crack
While we all appreciate the contribution of the baker, it's no longer his bread to give away.
If an artist speaks out against filesharing, people are quick to say, "We're not sheep, I'm not going to stop doing that just because they tell me to"... but if you get someone like Trent Reznor telling people to do it, you hear, "But Trent Reznor said it was okay!"
Your car analogy has failed. -10 points.
steal my crucified monkey you lazy rotary pagan
?
instead YOU have stolen our hearts, as ./ers, liberals, geeks, open source people and such.
what are you going to do about that ?
Read radical news here
But if it's the Ferrari designer telling you to do this...
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
Can you please cite the judicial order or legislative ruling that establishes copyright infringement as equivalent to theft?
How about...
The No Electronic Theft Act?
And let's hope you don't live somewhere that has doors that allow you entry and exit, or windows for your viewing pleasure. But there's never been an example of a non-hypocritical copyright advocate, nor will there ever be. And yes, Ferraris have doors and windows too!
hey CDs in Australia are EXPENSIVE. at least compared to what I'm used to. I went a year ago, and the CDs where around $20. granted, thats Austalian dollars, but the exchange rate was reasonably close at the time. (what? .75USD to 1.00AUD? [this is at the time i went people, not now. so dont get your panties in a bunch)] and what? I can buy them for $10-12?
"when you are a role model like he is"
If you're looking to rock stars for moral guidance, there's something seriously wrong with you, the manner in which you were raised, and your parents.
But your Dell reference makes a lovely troll, especially since the two situations are hardly comparable.
CD's in this country are not that expensive. I think they have been about $25AU for at least 15 years. Infaltion seems to have had no effect on music. If anything music has gotten cheaper due to the competition from iTunes. I used to buy a lot of CD singles. I have one that still has the price sticker on it, $9! (The average was more like $5.50) Today, I can get a CD single for about $3.50. Not only that but wages growth has exceeded infaltion by a very healthy amount here so I can buy a lot more music that I used to for the same proportion of my income. Music may be cheaper in other parts of the world but it certainly isnt expensive here.
Concert tickets, on the other hand, now there's inflation. It wasnt that long ago that a concert ticket was the same price as a CD. Now, you can pay 4 to 12 times the price of a CD for a concert ticket.
So you're all right with the fiction the labels use that artists are just working for hire and the labels really deserve to own the copyright to their music?
I know this isn't really your point, but I just hate seeing this fallacy repeated over and over again. The cost of creating the physical media IN NO WAY represents the full production cost of the product. That's like saying that the cost of software is just the cost of creating the installation CD.
First, if Linux actually violated lots of enforceable patents owned by Microsoft, they would have sued by now. This has been hashed over by just about everybody in the industry, and Microsoft has "agreed" (ahem) to not sue anybody yet. To everybody but the clueless the translation goes something like this:
Microsoft: "This is an empty threat. We know we do not have a leg to stand on."
Second, and in support of First: almost all software patents that have been granted in recent decades have been bogus anyway. Even Congress has finally realized that, and have passed bills purported to be attempts to fix the problems. But their most recent "cure" is probably worse than the disease. It is nothing but a giveaway to corporate interests. If it becomes law, you can probably say goodbye to a real patent system in the United States anymore.
Third, copyright infringement is NOT "stealing"! Both legally and ethically, they are two very different things. Learn the difference.
Fourth, it is a hot topic on Slashdot because lots of people here know who is doing the real stealing. Hint: it is not the everyday user you see posting stuff here.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
What if the creator of said Ferrari tells you to make your own copy? Since this is what happened here.
You shouldn't expect anymore than that when you sign with major record labels.
"We'll give you mass distribution, advertising, etc. for the rights to your music."
If they are cool with that, then they shouldn't complain.
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Or did I entirely dream this whole thing up? Regardless, he won the nerd heart years ago when he did the music for Quake, and moves such as this only make me respect him more.
Tickets to his show run $89 for two !! I could buy two tickets to paradise for that. Somehow I don't see him telling EVERYONE to somehow crash that.
What about the SCOTUS says it isn't theft argument?
Badass Resumes
Why? IA(definitely)NAL, but You don't refer to any position that suggests abolishing all contracts. Unless this law were to proactively forbid any compensation to the original artist in any case, I could still set up a contract with my end-user that required (or forbid) compensation for copies or derivative works.
-.-- -.-- --..
One fish / Two fish / Red fish / Blue fish
ShyaOS - Think Differently!
My point wasn't to say that copying intellectual property never creates a loss. I was merely trying to point out the inherent difference between intellectual property and real, physical, property. Perhaps I should not have included the 'more power to ya' part, as I can understand how that could convey that my opinion is that only real, physical, property can be stolen.
For physical items such as a Ferrari, most of the value does not lie in intellectual property (the design).. much of the value is in the materials, manufacturing, and labor that go into producing the car. While there is certainly a diminishing cost with each subsequent Ferrari produced, there is still a very real and measurable cost-per-unit produced. For purely intellectual property, all of the cost is in the creation of the first work, and each copy after that is as near to zero in cost as is possible. This makes the concepts of theft, loss, and value a completely different animal for each type of 'property'. I had not meant to imply that all copying of intellectual property is fair and morally legitimate, only that the two types cannot be compared to each other so casually. They are simply not the same thing.
On February 12, 2007, a USB drive was found in a bathroom stall during a NIN concert in Lisbon. It contained a high-quality MP3 of the track "My Violent Heart," which quickly circulated throughout the Internet. Another USB drive containing the same track was purportedly found in Madrid.
On February 19, another USB drive was found in Barcelona, containing the track "Me, I'm Not" and an MP3 of static.
On February 25, a third USB drive was found in Manchester, containing the track "In This Twilight" and an image of the Hollywood sign apparently demolished.
Concerning the use of USB drives as a form of promotion, Reznor explains:
" The USB drive was simply a mechanism of leaking the music and data we wanted out there. The medium of the CD is outdated and irrelevant. It's really painfully obvious what people want -- DRM-free music they can do what they want with. If the greedy record industry would embrace that concept I truly think people would pay for music and consume more of it.That's awesome, and makes my nerd heart warm.
Are we supposed to fall for another worthless publicity stunt of another celebrity pretending to "be one of us"?
Klingon Software is not released, it escapes, inflicting terrible damage onto the enemy as it does
You shouldn't expect anymore than that when you sign with major record labels.
Just because it's in the contract, that doesn't mean it's not a legal fiction, or (in this case) that the baker isn't telling you to steal someone else's bread.
There's plenty of precedent for 'take it or leave it' contracts being nullified. There's plenty of precedent for unreasonable terms being overturned. So if you want to support that "baker" analogy you have to explain why this is not merely in the contract, but something that should be considered reasonable by the people you're talking to. Who, I might remind you, are slashdot readers.
But if you aren't even willing to TRY supporting it, you're just trolling.
That's, why Reznor persists attracting me: he is delivering value in risky circumstances.
Servant of karma
Major label payout at 10%
Wholesale price: $9 / 90 cents per CD = $90,000.00
Selling as independent artist and Amazon(tm) Partner
Staff member to mail packages: $30,000 per year
Cost per CD, printing: $1
Cost per CD, packaging and mailing: $4
Cost per year: $530,000 on revenues of ($15 CD) $1.5m
Net: $1m
Going indie is not just more trendy, it's more profitable, once you've already got that mega-media marketing machine convincing 100,000 people they need to buy your (mediocre) music.
technical writing / development
Unfortunately, we are in the scenario where an artist that people will listen to (read: popular) got that way because of the RIAA and the industry they are in... they have likely signed a long-term contract. Once they are out of that contract, the general population won't really care about them (read: Pearl Jam, Prince) and they will kind of fade away. Personally, I like all of these acts I have named, but they aren't in the main spotlight anymore. This is a system that the RIAA has created, and unless someone can a) gain huge popularity without them and b) stay out of their clutches, it won't seem possible to break out of their system.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
In the world of the copyable Ferrari, the company won't make money from building Ferraris. Designing and building the prototype is just an incidental expense - the real money will be made from the servicing the millions of people with Ferrari copies. There's the 3000-mile engine rebuilds, selling Ferrari tires (with patented 7-lug wheels), providing parts for wrecked Ferraris, driving schools, and money from the Ferrari Bikini Team concert tour.
'And less power to the guy who designs Ferraris for a living.'
Actually, less power to the company that exploits the guy who designs Ferraris for a living. That of course is a good thing, since they currently have several orders of magnitude more power than they are entitled to. There are also alternative business models they could adopt.
Actually, the Ferrari duplicator would eliminate the need for that company and the Ferrari designer would probably end up with a VERY substantial pay raise.
If you do what he says, will the record label still come after you?
...but is it art?
I whole heartedly agree that music should be free, and not just belong to the artist but be free for all the fans to enjoy. It just isn't the case with modern big record labels. They offer their services in exchange for the rights to the music, or that's how I know it. I can't find any sources to back me up, but I'm not trying to troll. I just don't think the music's rights belong to him. They belong to the record label, because NIN wanted to have fame and fortune. It's not the record companies fault, it's the artists who sell out that are at fault.
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You know something is wrong when the MUSIC COMPANY gets pissed at their artist for saying this? WTF, since when did they become the boss, and not the artist? The music company EXIST solely because of the artists and things like lots of annoying sound compressed advertisements (as much as their sold music is) on TV. Let them say whatever they want, and you better just focus on pushing your damn ads everywhere. Musicians barely even need their studios anymore since we entered the digital age and it started maturing to push down artists. Music companies need to come down to earth and realize what duty they have here. The artists are the masters, and they are given their jobs thanks to them. Show them the respect that's due, or if you don't agree, just shut up?
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
If you play piano, there's sheet music available for two of my songs, with the rest coming sometime soon.
It's all completely legal to share, as it has a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 license. You can create derivative works such as remixes, and even sell my work or perform it in front of a paying crowd, but you must share alike - that is, give your derivative works the same license.
Why am I doing this? I am studying both piano and music theory with the aim of going back to school someday to major in musical composition. I want to compose symphonies.
I'll be in my fifties by the time I graduate - I can't afford to spend years building up a fan base. So when your local symphony orchestra plays my work, I want there to already be a loyal fan base in your city.
Thanks for your help!
Request your free CD of my piano music.
to push down artists
Thinking one thing, writing another... Should be "to push down costs". As in hardware and production costs.
Anyway, good to see Trent Reznor put down his foot when it's necessary. Many artists seem to be just so weak that they don't dare and just keep acting safely like the mediabots they were tought to be.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
R O C K ... O N ! ! ! ! !
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Two immensely talented and popular artists that hate the labels? Yeah, Trent and Prince ought to get together and give the giant finger to the labels.
And both the name and design have value that comes out of decades of hard work from the members of the Ferrari company (family? LLC?) and so if you sell or rent your mock-up and make money off of it, it's arguable that you are profiting inappropriately, and that there may be some reasonable expectation of recompense or other protection for the designers of the copied product and the owners of the trademark name.
Even in my original example, you probably need to gain access to the original Ferrari in order to copy it in full detail. Even a good spec sheet probably would not allow you to make one that looks and feels like the original. So the question is, would anyone who's paid $250,000 for a car loan it to you so that you can take molds and measurements to make your own? Even if you rented it, could the owner of the car specify in the rental contract that you are only allowed to use it for driving?
Of course, you could resolve this problem by buying the car yourself. I don't know what's in the sales contract from ferrari, but I don't know if a "no copying" clause could be enforced in a personal use situation.
In addition to the sale or rental of functional cars, I could see some other places where the commercial use of a copy could be problematic. If, for instance, you were in the business of selling cheap copies of cars to be destroyed in TV show car chases, the car companies whose models you were copying could probably be justified in claiming that you are profiting from their designs and thus could require compensation. Heck, I believe that even HotWheels and their ilk have to pay license to the companies that make the real-world counterparts to their toys.
I'm sure there are other grey areas; obviously, as you point out, copying a car and copying an MP3 are very different issue, but the biggest issue I see with that difference and thus your comparison, is that if you have the mad skillz to make a Ferrari copy that is realistic enough to be a sue-able offense, then you probably could make a good enough living making custom cars that you could afford to buy one outright.
The CB App. What's your 20?
Third, copyright infringement is NOT "stealing"! Both legally and ethically, they are two very different things. Learn the difference.
I definitely agree with this, but being that IANAL, I have a difficult time explaining this to others. Care to explain this in semi-technical semi-legal terminology for those of us without law degrees? I recently heard a (horrible) lecture by an ethics professor who argued that copyright infringement is stealing, so I'm quite interested in the formal argument.
I swear the GP is some kind of RIAA attack dog trained to saturate the net with lies. Good job showing him up.
Oops, how did this get here?
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
It's not really accurate to say that he's the "Front Man" of NIN - he's the only member of NIN. He hires a few people to tour with him.
You know what? It's a pretty fucking sad day when the US DOJ can't even be taken seriously.
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act!" -- George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair)
If I did manage to magiclone someones Ferrari...
Should I pay them, or the designers at Ferrari?
Or the trucking company that brought the finished items from the manufacturer to the lot it was purchased from?
or all three?
Ice Cream has no bones.
the internet has flat out replaced the music publishing business. all we are seeing today in all of these so-called "issues" is the growing pains of moving from the antiquated system to the internet based one
the internet based one, of course, needs no middleman. so your up and coming artist will put out his shingle, his website, be discovered by someone, and grow a fan base. perhaps he will be plugged on some music portal, online radio. people still need somewhere to go to sample new music. traditional radio i suppose won't really change at all, but may return to the era of the salty local dj who picks his own playlists, rather than song lists bought and sold by the music industry
but the money involved in this will all be advertising revenue, not money to or from artists. likewise, artists will only make money, if they ever become popular, via live gigs, or for hawking products: more advertising. artists won't make any money from albums. albums will become a historical artifact of the 20th century. and more importantly, music publishers won't make money from albums, because the music industry itself will simply fade away and die. artists will give their music away for free up front, to grow a fan base. does that sound strange? it's actually completely normal. they did this in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s: it was called radio. you heard songs, you bought the album. now you will hear songs from your traditional radio or online portal, and get it for free. but you will still go to concerts, and you will recognize your favorite artists when at&t hires them to do a commercial, or to play their song in the background of said commercial
and such a future is already ehre, in china, and most of the rest of the world outside the west. this is how most artists in the world live now, and how most have always lived since the dawn of time
just as you say, moving away from the corporate music industry is not some horrible act of trangressive freakish abnormality. it is actually a return to normalcy. it is the 20th century, in the west, with its corporate music industry, that is in fact the freakish aberration in time and place, not the other way around
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I needed his ok BEFORE stealing his music?
You're presenting a serious argument, not just shouting that copyright violation equals theft. You deserve a good explanation, and not abuse. But there are several reasons why copyright violation isn't theft, and they have nothing to do with who gets compensated for what (in the US at least).
1. Copyright law, at least originally, was all under title 17 of the US legal code. Criminal actions are kept organized in a completely different section, Title 18. So the congress drafted our most basic federal laws to say copyright violation was not only not theft, but not criminal at all. Some parts of CV have become criminal of late, but they are still not all properly incorporated into that part of the code.
2. Copyrights expire. There is no such thing as an object becoming old enough that it is no longer theft to steal it. So long as the constitution says "for a limited time" copyright violation is being treated as automatically not theft by the U S Constitution.
3. There is still a non-criminal class of copyright violations, including 'violations' that are not even torts because of fair use. 'Non-criminal theft' is an absurdity. If copyright violation = theft, then there can be no fair use, as stealing even part of something is still theft just as much as stealing the whole thing. CV=T means no quotation of even a small portion without permission, and makes negative reviews illegal.
4. All copyright law in the US is federal, and the courts have ruled it cannot be delegated to the states. If copyright violation is theft, then the Federal government has no legal grounds for prohibiting the individual states from passing laws to prohibit theft taking place within their borders.
Now, you could argue that the U S Congress, the Justice Dept., and the Supreme Court are all wrong on various points, and the Constitution itself needs amended. Maybe. But I have yet to see any of the persons who are yelling "CV=T!" on Slashdot accuse their congressman of pandering to thieves, or demand a recall of the Supreme Court because they are misapplying the constitution so egregiously, or even lobby their state to pass its own copyright laws that make CV=T locally, and fight the court decisions prohibiting them. The CV=T! crowd seems to love calling typical slashdot posters thieves, but until one of them stands up in the capital rotunda and applies their very same logic to the congress, I'm assuming they either don't really believe it, or are too cowardly to speak truth to power. (That's very much not directed at you, OK?)
On the same note, I've been repeatedly called a thief, just for making these very same points before. Since I have never either uploaded or downloaded music (except downloading by fully legal methods where I have paid properly for every track), I think I can safely say I am not a thief, even by the strictest CV=T definition. So, if the CV=T! shouters are right, and "the law is the law, its all so simple, there are no other factors and only a crook would think otherwise", I know 15 or so Slashdot posters who have committed Libel. I don't see anyone posting to these endless copyright threads with "What you've just said = Libel" when this comes up. None of the CV=T! people seem to give a damn about whether a crime is being committed against me, just against the RIAA. They come off like they live by the George Orwell phrase "Everybody's equal, but some are more equal than others.", and I suspect that's why a lot of people are fed up with them. Personally, I'd rather let them insult me than complain - their lack of rational behavior will eventually make it clear what they really want is very far from justice for all.
Who is John Cabal?
> Anytime you see the term 'IP' used in this context, think 'Illusionary Property' because that's exactly what it is.
Call it Imaginary Property?
Illusionary should probably be illusory, anyhow, if you insist on something derived from the word illusion.
Tag it as willdo, for the lols.
sounds like 'bang my woman!' for me... oh wait
just wonder why there are so many anonymous cowards in this world....
Putting aside the idea that creation should be its own reward, I think this would lead to a world with less SUV's and more deloreans. In a world without scarcity of resources, there would be nothing for people to do but design better ferraris, and use their nanoforges to hook themselves up with prototypes.
Your thinking is very limited (I am tempted to invoke your sig but I wont). You dont have to give people incentives to be creative. For every paid musician, theres a guy in his bedroom mixing tracks, for free. The end result is that passion and professionalism wins, not for profit revenue maximization.
I will now repost one of my favourite slashdot posts ever on this subject (author is sadly unknown)
In this worldview, society benefits, not just the privileged few who are able to pay a license fee for ferrari or hammer blueprints.
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
Which album is he promoting this time?
I'm going to run out and buy their latest CD.
.....
Oh, wait
-- Will program for bandwidth
But I though Apple stole the whole UI from Xerox, and I know Apple is good. Of course, I know that because if I post that apple is bad I get modded down into oblivion, and the mods are never wrong. Right?
They don't write the laws. There is a lot of stupid stuff on the books all books of law and codified morality; (see shellfish eating is sinful.....)
Artists make almost nothing from CD sales anyway. They are signed to horrid contracts and record labels use "hollywood accounting" to deprive them of CD royalties. Fifteen % of zero and zero % of zero are both zero. Trent was right to encourage stealing his music because only the labels will lose because they pocket all the $$$, and he can still draw an income from concert appearances.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
Oh come on, how can this be off topic boo! anyhow...
well, the last time i remember someone starting off like this,they ended up having an extremely hard time later in life, and since then i haven't heard of anyone else do what pearl jam tried to do.
We should support these few brave artists so the companies who control their music understand.
arrrrg
My abilities are only limited by my imagination
I personally know musicians who've got albums in the "100 best sellers of all time" list and didn't make a penny from record sales. Not one.
This isn't anything new either, it's been going on since at leat the 70's. The web is full of stories about major artists who disbanded because they ended up owing money to the record companies.
I remember the day I first showed them Napster and they laughed out loud because they knew it would be the end of the record companies.
What should artists do? First set up a web site. Next, go and talk to somebody like CDBABY - they garantee you at least $6 per CD sale (minimum!). Link to them from your web site.
What should the public do? First watch the movie "Before The Music Dies". Next, steal from the RIAA like Trent says but buy direct from the artist or through people like CDBABY.
The record companies aren't just ripping off artists they're also stifling innovation and killing decent music. The sooner we get rid of them the better.
No sig today...
So Trent acts out his persona and the bigwigs at Universal do their thing and pretend to be totally P.O.ed about it. If they really wanted to stop him, they could.
Meanwhile, the story gets out and more people hear what a rebel Trent Reznor and NiN is. More people download the music... and at the same time, more people go to the record store and buy the over-priced CDs.
It reminds one of the way Microsoft pretends to hate piracy, but knows full well that the more people pirate Windows, the more people buy it. The big labels must be realizing that the more people pirate their music, the more people will buy it.
Culture is somewhat analogous to platform.
Has he put his money where his mouth is?
No - he appears largely to have put his label's money where his mouth is.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
about buying "year zero" off of mp3sparks.com.
I would say that if you managed to slip in peacefully and didn't deprive anyone of their seat, conduct yourself peacefully, don't push the stadium over its maximum occupancy, etc etc, then yes, it is truly harmless. Hard to gauge the maximum occupancy, especcially not knowing how many other people hyptohetically sneaked in, so it would be hard to know ahead of time if you are creating a dangerous situation, so it's not a good idea, but the act isn't intrinsically harmful. Ethically justified, hard to say, but not impactful to anyone signifiantly. It's not like you get anything other than to listen and interact with other fans. If anything, helping fill the house enriches the experience in a NIN concert.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
I said no text, god damn it.
That should totally be the tag :)
"Question with boldness even the existence of a god." - Thomas Jefferson
Hooray for helping the cause (albeit slightly prematurely). I've already stolen his whole catalog.
Geeks strike again 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
One can say the same about a CD. It either has "drawing" power or it doesn't. And might I add you are quite the he-man! but you don't support your argument either way. If one (TR) complains about CD prices (really, often only $10 as an amazon pre-order special price), one (TR) should be more so complaining and telling people to steal into one's (TR's) shows. It's not like one (TR) is out anything since nothing was physically stolen, and frankly, nothing was even infringed. Like Gore telling you to use one square of TP and jet-setting around the globe in his Lear, and limos, if you don't want to eat it, don't try and serve it.
Marillion have done some albums funded by their fans.
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep03/articles/marillion.htm/
http://www.theregister.com/2004/04/28/marillion_comeback/
Your thoughts form your reality.
Most music fans have no idea how the music business is structured. Reznor says that the record companies and current distribution system rips off music fans, but the record companies get a substantially smaller percentage of retail CD sales than Reznor's share of live gate receipts. When performing acts become successful enough to tour nationally and perform at venues like arenas and outdoor amphitheaters they get over 90% of the gate receipts. This is true for just about any headlining band at a major venue and certainly includes NIN. With some performers venues will bid on the show, giving points to the artist. Barbra Streisand, for example, has sometimes demanded 100% of the gate receipts plus percentages of concessions, and venues will accede to those demands for the prestige of hosting a megastar. The big venues make money from parking, concessions (where they sell you $0.25 worth of CokePepsi for $4) and usually 33% of merchandise sales. The artists aren't willing to make less money so t-shirts at concerts are typically more expensive than from the band's web site. The promoters do get a cut of the gate, of course, less than 10%, but with current ticket prices, a show can easily gross $1,000,000, and $50K-$100K isn't bad for one concert. Megapromoters like SFX/Clear Channel can make big bucks with all the shows they are simultaneously promoting. But it's the talent that makes the real money at Reznor's level in the music biz. Factoring in merchandise sales, he's probably grossing close to million dollars a night. While it's true that it costs money to put on a show, it should be pointed out that record companies haves costs as well. The record company receives at most 50% of the retail price of the CD and has to pay production, promotion and royalty costs out of their share. Reznor gets over 90% of the ticket price at concerts, so he really has no moral standing to criticize record companies and record stores (regardless of how loathsome I consider the big 5 record companies to be). At least with the CD you are buying a tangible item that might actually retain some monetary value (or become a valuable collectible, even). A concert ticket buys you an experience, of unquantifiable value, and I doubt that Reznor's ever refunded tickets for putting on a bad show, so it's unclear whether Reznor is giving you a better overall deal than the record company.
I think the part you missed about the article was that he wasn't actually complaining about how much CDs cost in the US, but in Australia, where prices are apparently ridiculous. Honestly I'm not sure what to make your "he-man" comment, and I was neither defending Reznor's actions nor condemning them, I was simply pointing out that $44.50 for a ticket to a concert of the scale of a Nine Inch Nails show is pretty reasonable in today's market.
But then, I tend to go to more underground shows in small venues, and pay around $8.00 to $20 for a ticket, and all the bands I know survive (literally) off their merchandise sales at the shows. If they sell well, they eat, if they don't, well... they don't.
Shinma
That is the right ballpark for Japanese CD albums, actually... I paid I think $22 for my last single here. (As you can imagine, I don't buy them that often. iTunes, ho! Or even that cruddy I-can-believe-its-not-iTunes Sony music store that won't work with my iPod but at least has the music I want.)
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
Wait a moment here! Isn't that a hidden subliminal pernicious message from a RIAA artist: that sharing of music files is actually stealing? But is it really? Since when has it become common to call copying (not moving) of bytes "stealing" instead of "duplicating"? If at all, duplication contributes to the author's popularity, and increases his (but especially his label's) wealth out of residual CD and concert tickets sales. Wouldn't that be free advertising, the very opposite of stealing?
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
TIAEAE!
The whole point of copyright is to give value to something which has no value by allowing for the control of distribution. By controlling distribution you create a finite supply and the math changes and gives you a value. Copyright modifies the free market in order to give an artificial value to a zero value product.
So now the question is why? And the answer is very simple because it's actually written into the constitution.
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts . Now you can make all sorts of arguments of what exactly useful Arts are(and whether music is one), but the meaning is pretty clear. Copyright exists in order to encourage scientists and artists to spend their time doing science and art instead of doing other things. The founding fathers believed that having people do this sort of thing had value and so they created an artificial value for their ideas.The thing is they did not provide for the suppression and control of ideas for essentially unlimited periods. Nor did they provide for the right of non creators to profit from the actions of creators. I firmly believe that if the framers of the constitution saw the modern music industry and the current expiration period of copyrights they would be appalled.
read the original posts subject. he is not saying that pirating music is equivalent to theft. he is saying that trent reznor believes that pirating music is equivalent to theft
"I like to wear big boy pants."
I whole heartedly agree that music should be free, and not just belong to the artist but be free for all the fans to enjoy.
Nope, that's not what I said either.
I said that the artist should retain the rights. That they don't is due to the massive imbalance of power between the labels and the artists that the labels have built up over the years.
Music production and book production aren't that different, but authors don't have to sign over their rights forever to get published. At most they sign over a SPECIFIC set of publication rights for a SPECIFIC time. If book printing had started in the laissez-faire capitalism of the early 20th century, instead of growing along with copyright and related laws over the centuries prior, things would be different.
So the current legal situation is purely accident, bad luck for the artists, and there's no moral or ethical reason to treat it as a fait accompli rather than oppose it.
I guess you all don't remember how much he really hates the major record labels. Oh, he know he has to do business with the mafia bastards to get that big in the music industry. All bands who want to get to that level have to do it. But that all does not mean that he likes it. Back when he got a Grammy for "Wish" on "Broken" he dissed them by not showing up. When he got his Grammy he took a picture of it in a toilet. Also when his label demanded that he make another "Pretty Hate Machine" Trent up and left with his band to a country house in Pennsylvania. He told nobody where they went. Not even his agent. He them recorded "Broken" which was the opposite of "Pretty hate Machine". So when Reznor says steal my music it like when System of A Down said "Steal This Album". They really do mean it. :)
But besides the IP issues, you signed a contract with Trent Reznor!
You signed a contract with a performer who features bondage, torture, humiliation, S&M, and extreme interpersonal conflict.
I think the record company should feel fortunate that they are only being humiliated from the stage, and not in Reznor's basement.
Janis Ian is outspoken about the industry. Long career, lot of releases, and she said _every_ one has been accompanied by a letter from accounting telling her how much _she_ owes _them_ for the release.
and I hate the price of CDs over here. The retail price of CDs was creeping up over the $30AUD mark (but from memory dropped back down around the time the GST was introduced). It's only recently, something like the last two years, that labels like Universal have dropped the retail prices down to $20AUD.
Compare that with importing CDs. Especially with our current exchange rate, it's usually cheaper to order a few CDs online and get them shipped out than to buy the exact same CDs in stores out here. Store imports are even worse. Using Nine Inch Nails as an example, I paid $40 for the DVDA and $50 for the SACD special editions of The Downward Spiral. I could have gotten them much cheaper had I imported them myself.
Concert tickets though, I completely agree. It's almost costing as much to go to a single concert than it is to go to the Big Day Out these days - and I've been considering making next year's Big Day Out my last due to rising costs and declining quality.
All of the class of Universal Media Group disagrees.
-Red
Guns don't kill people, "with glowing hearts" kills people.
Trent Reznor Says "Steal My Music"
Done.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Hah... as if UMG had class.
What about the SCOTUS says it isn't theft argument?
Maybe because they didn't say that:
The phonorecords in question were not "stolen, converted or taken by fraud" for purposes of [section] 2314. The section's language clearly contemplates a physical identity between the items unlawfully obtained and those eventually transported, and hence some prior physical taking of the subject goods. Since the statutorily defined property rights of a copyright holder have a character distinct from the possessory interest of the owner of simple "goods, wares, [or] merchandise," interference with copyright does not easily equate with theft, conversion, or fraud. The infringer of a copyright does not assume physical control over the copyright nor wholly deprive its owner of its use. Infringement implicates a more complex set of property interests than does run-of-the-mill theft, conversion, or fraud.
They ruled on an interstate transportation of stolen goods statute - and the decision has apparently not been used in other cases.
So it's not as simple to say that the SCOTUS has ruled definitively on the issue (and the wikie article you quote points that out)
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Apples to oranges. Nobody wants to see Ferrari go out of business. But in this topic we are talking about one of the most evil corporations on the face of the planet. They attack ordinary decent citizens from all walks of life. Anything that can be done to destroy them is the only morally right thing to do. Therefore paying for music is actually morally wrong. Many laws have been put through by corrupt pollies who have been bought off by said evil corporate body. So abiding by those laws is also morally wrong they are laws sponsored by evil.
Australian running a company that does C# / C++ / Java / SQL / Python / Mathematica
is buying a second hand ferrari theft? money changes hands but the creator got none of it. did they suffer a loss because you bought it second hand instead of buying a new from them?
No, because they got their value from the first sale - hence the doctrine of first sale which generally allows you to resell something you bought without the original sellers permission.
Some countries are modifying that to where an artists is entitled to a cut from subsequent sales.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
It's very easy to give stuff away - once you've already made your pile.
It's very easy to give stuff away - when selling it puts money in someone else's pile.
Artists for major record labels don't make any money selling CDs. You give your mechanical rights to the record company, they promote you, and you make your money on performances. That's the deal.
In the old world, this was a 'good' deal, as without the muscle of the record companies promoting you, your act was going to continue to play bars and night clubs instead of stadiums.
In the new world, there's the internet, and you can do quite well for yourself keeping your mechanical rights and performing less.
paintball
Could you provide a link? You could start with the discussion in Copyright Clause.
Actually he's been running his own studio since the release of "Broken" in 1992 :)
Parent post is off-topic.
Their functional similarity is not the basis of their association. Either the FSF is being disingenuous or they're painfully ignorant in making that claim. Rather, it is their concurrence in a legal dispute that makes them form a convenient grouping. Copyrights, patents, trademarks, and trade secrets are very closely interrelated (along with stocks and bonds, certain aspects of contract law, and a number of other components of business and commercial law) in legal proceedings.
The term's convenience or transparency to the general public could not be less relevant. The fact that people think there is a unifying theory that makes them functionally similar is completely beside the point.
You can replace "intellectual property" with "real property" and make the same rant (substituting other elements for copyright, patent, and so on). Not surprisingly, words have different meanings in legal contexts. The FSF is preaching to the choir--legalese is confusing to lay people! What a shocking revelation!
It would have been poetic justice if he performed "Head Like A Hole" after that speech.
The Rapture is NOT an exit strategy.
by his standing up to the record labels that I want to buy one of his CDs but that would be wrong now.
I always find it sad when the guy who misses the joke and retells the joke like he's the one that's clever gets the mod points.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
"Because one way or another these mother****ers will get it through their head that they're ripping people off and that's not right.'"
... $16.24. Welp, that's more than the average CD price is today. I find em anywhere from $12.99 to $16.99. So what's the problem?
.99c ?
Do the math folks. Compare the price of an album from the 70's, or a 45 rpm single from any time period... then account for inflation. We live in a time when music has NEVER BEEN CHEAPER.
NIN's last album was $9.99 in canadian dollars. I used to buy TAPES in the late 80's for $9.99 canadian. Where's the inflation? What? Did you say that NIN's album price is an exception, not the rule? OK, well how much should $9.99 of 1989 dollars be today?
People will pay $3.50 for a cup of coffee that's gone within the next hour, but a music track you get to enjoy over and over is not worth the
It affects thee, you 'tard! If you don't want to buy a CD you "really, really get into" because you are on a panty-waist-hunger strike, who gives a shit? No one. A perfectly good excuse to steal everything using torrents in your 'tarded mind I bet: "Jeez, they are asshats so I'm just going to steal their shit from now on!"
No, read the parent post again. The context was: "how is he going to distribute by himself, without a big label behind him?"
I'm surprised nobody seems to have brought this up yet, but I will.
Think about the language he is using.
Is he encouraging people to go into record stores, grabbing copies of his albums, and running?
Or is he encouraging people to make copies of his music and distributing it?
The former is stealing. The latter is copyright infringement. There is a difference. When someone steals from you, you lose something that you had. When someone makes a copy of something you have the copyright to, you don't lose anything. It can be argued that you lose the potential to make some money, but that's a sticky issue - in at least some cases, copyright infringement has been shown to actually boost profits. Anyway, that's not important here.
What is important is that we keep the terminology straight. Copyright infringement is not stealing. People who share music are not thieves. We shouldn't encourage them to be thieves, either. And we shouldn't let the RIAA set the rules of the game, by copying their slanted language.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
That was the joke.
I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
http://www.theninhotline.net/
nothing.can.stop.me.now
karma's a bitch aint it? :P
It's been like a decade since I've listened to anything he's done, but I applaud him for this. Really, the whole thing is ridiculous. I think even the biggest record labels only have about five good years of life left in them.
Bands don't need the labels for promotion when they have the internet.
Bands don't need the labels for production when anyone can build a usable digital recording studio in a spare bedroom.
Bands don't need the labels for manufacturing when CD duplication is getting cheaper by the day.
Bands don't need the labels for distribution and sales when there's UPS/FedEX/DHL, FOSS e-commerce solutions, and Paypal.
So what exactly DO bands need the labels for? As it stands, nothing. But many artists either don't know it, or are contractually enslaved for the time being.
Basically, all the labels are good for is putting your CD in big name stores no one actually buys music from anymore, and taking damn near every last penny of profit.
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
By pricing music out of the market to avarage citizens, they just feed the pirate market. This is exactly what trent is asking australians to do. BTW what does a CD costs in Australia?
I know I'm going to hell, I'm just trying to get good seats.
You are losing sight of the original point TR is raising. Prices in AUSTRALIA are stupidly high. His original rant (back in May) was when he found out that his album was priced at AU$32 (US$17.50) while generic top40 fluff was sold at AU$21. The reason given by the record company (UA) was that his fans would pay that price, so they will sell it high. The video is him continuing that rant. Australian prices hadn't dropped (RRP) and as he found in China, his music was damn near impossible to find apart from pirate copies sold in markets. In those cases (prices artificially inflated or items not available) he said to download it free. That you can pre-order in the US for a cheap price means nothing to the argument. You either have to wait a few weeks for the item to be sent, or pay extra for priority airmail (negating the cheap price anyway). If you can buy any CD cheap, cool. But some of us do get ripped off just because we aren't in the good ol' USA.
have any of the people bitching at Trent for "breaking his contract" seen said contract?
Supporting a couple high profile artists for speaking out is commendable, but you should also be supporting artists that are, and have always been, truly independent of the corporations.
Hmm... Coincidentally, that line sounds oddly familiar.
http://www.theaterhopper.com/vault/070523.jpg
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
It would be nice if someone bought some for a change. There's a few videos I've made for various albums, and, to stay on topic, mny remix of "me i'm not" that I wrote using the multi-track sources Trent released for his new album (which I think, personally, is his best work in years).
Of course, no one has really ever stolen my music, since I tend to give it away, following the 'try before you buy' approach that is preached around here. I just think that you can't steal what I give away, but sometimes it's nice to get something back to continue along with all the work that I've done over the years to make my albums, writing and artwork.
Of course, one can alway just make a donation or buy some merchandise if they want to support the cause as well. I've been on this site for years and follow it's practices well...unfortunately it doesn't seem to pay, or not at least yet.
I hear most my work is quite good, maybe you might think so too.
Listen to my music.
since he like most musicians ended up selling the copyrights to this music (something that I fail to see any argument for being legal in the first place)
I work, I don't get to keep the copyright on my work why should musicians be any different.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
first time i saw that. im not much into web comics.
Read radical news here
You missed the most amazingly geektastic thing about that thumbdrive. At the end of the leaked My violent Heart there is a few seconds of what sounds like white noise.
When someone on the intarwebs eventually decided to run a various type of analysis on it, it was found that it actually encodes an image. I think you have to plot time on one axis, frequency on the other, energy at that frequency, at that time as brightness at thate point.
Anyway, the image is a version of the "hand reaching through" thing is now on the the album cover.
The hidden image is now at the end of The Warning on the actual album.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
Yeah Baby!!!!!! Rock & Roll!!!! ...I'm getting too old for this
I remember when Trent was on Mtv slamming artists for putting mp3s out let alone encouraging the audience to take what is free anyway.Yeah thats right,music is free.You can no more charge for soundwaves than air.
Even if someone takes time to put air in a bottle its still free air inside there.You only pay for the bottle and labor(if you're so clever as to buy air when its free)
Performance is worth paying for.Supporting leeches who work for the music industry is not.They can find other employment(hey the world needs ditchdiggers too).
The industry is dead.Bad business model.We are only watching it shake like a dog who's just been run over.
It's not going to get better.
Artists can survive wonderfully without some megabucks to tell John Q.Public whats good to listen to and charge them a middlemans fee for it.
Steal away indeed,bullshit,it's free.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Trent played in Beijing a few days ago.
He posted a message to his chinese fans addressing the issues of pirating and illegal downloading... basically that if you can't afford the CD, then download.
If anyone knows chinese, feel free to translate it for us:
http://nin.com/china/
(btw the entire album was playable online on the official NIN site around the time of release).
There's one thing Trent seems to forget. There's more than just majors. There are also music stores. These are those who lose the most. I've been working in a CD/vinyl shop. We had to close down in 2002 because of low sales. The shop was open since 1993. Majors can still get their bucks by selling music online while sellers of "physical" format lose their jobs... In the last 5 years, 8 records stores closed down around where I live. When Trent says: steal music to hurt the majors, he forget all the other people living of music. Music sellers are almost always forgotten by people encouraging copy.
I remember a book by some hippie around 1969 (can't remember the dude's name, man. Can I get another toke?) named "Steal This Book."
I rememer now- Abbie Hoffman (IIRC, which I probably don't, man).
The "morality" of the respective industries is telling; a book publisher doesn't object to a title of "Steal This Book" (presumably meaning "shoplift this sucker") while a record label is up in arms about a singer saying during a concert "Steal my music" (presumably not meaning shoplifting.)
It's also telling that they would object to "steal my music" but not object to "I want to fuck you like an animal, I want to feel you from the inside, I want to fuck you like an animal".
It's also telling that these assholes have no objections to rappers singing about whores, pimps, shooting policemen, smoking crack, murder and mayhem (not only rappers, but even country music - "I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die"), but "steal my music" and they go postal.
Record company executives are truly evil.
-mcgrew
I've found the nin softening more recently,
maybe this will add fuel to the fire of TR.
---
Burn them baby, burn 'em all!!!
An artist performing is a limited resource. They cant perform everyday, non stop, anywhere you want.
A CD isnt really limited much.
So if the artist has 5 shows for 1 million people ticket prices are going to be high one way or another. If the artist sells tickets for $1 they will be scalped and sold for a higher price. If he sells too high them people wont come. Generally smart people look at past history and figure out how to maximize revenue.
CDs can be mass produced for a few bucks and if you try and sell them too high people will just share them, not buy them, or download them.
I think if CD prices were cut in half the industry would probably see a net $ increase in sales.
Under his current contract he owes his label 2 more CDs.
burrocrisy
and that would be what? Ruling by jackasses? Never has a slashdot misspelling been more apropos
Okay, now you say in response to me something like, "but, um, yeah, like, YOU'RE the one using profanity and childish insults...now who's pedantic!" Why don't you just own up to the fact that you are annoying and that you don't have anything to say and quit putting it on other people. Hell, why don't you use this post to HELP yourself instead of further making an ass of yourself.
Ratface23 says "No thanks - it sucks"
(And I am a fan of lots of indutrial music, but NIN tracks always sound the same to me for some reason)
A little planning goes a long way...
I'm just going to note that Trent seems to have made several headlines for himself by telling his slave-owners to f**k off. This in and of itself is probably a good move for him - and, ironically, for them. While they get "bad" publicity, none of their bottom line is going to change. The people stealing music are going to be the same people. The people buying the CDs are going to be the same, too. The only difference in this scenario is that Trent is more likely to get people at his concerts.
[Ego]out
Cam the show.
Let's see if his attitude changes after ticket sales decline.
That's pretty typical, and I've seen bands get screwed where the record company contract stated they were entitled to some or all proceeds from merchandise sales until recording costs were recouped (ok, some I can understand, but all really sucks). Record companies structure contracts in a way that artists (except songwriters) almost never break even - they pay themselves first (producer, songwriter, recording engineer, manager, marketing, distribution, and probably a few more I've missed), then use the artists tiny cut to pay off the recording debt. New artists often get horrible contracts that pay little, and even if their take is $1/album (good by some I've seen) the label needs to sell 10000 albums to "break even" if $10000 is borrowed up front to do the recording (10k was a typical 1990s session). The album probably technically recoups cost at about the 2-5k range (and since it's my opinion that most marketing costs for new artists are pocketed, probably less), but is considered a loss until all the "up-front" money is paid back. If the artist manages to sell 10k, they're still at the break-even point, and everyone else has been paid nicely (if the songwriter(s) is in the band, at least one member has made money).
That $44.50 covers venue cost (including maintenance), crews, engineers, etc. A bigger band usually has more up-front costs, but as long as the cost of the venue is paid, income is usually in the band's favor. Many artists make sure to pay themselves first and some are notorious for not paying their crew or set builders (like *ahem* that guy that was named a symbol for a while *ahem*). Anyhow, some bands are milking the audience for $100+ tickets, which I think is absurd, but then again, pro sports does that too (which I think is absurd).
How about the No Electronic Theft Act, which deals primarily with copyright infringement?
Not to say that I think people shouldn't have the right to video the things they see - on the contrary, I think if someone wants to document their own personal experiences, they ought to have that right. I don't agree with the idea, at ball games for instance, of the management saying "all this you're seeing, we own this, you can't do anything at all with it."
But it is pretty frikkin' annoying, being at a show or something, and a bunch of dipshits holding their cell phones up to video it. It's like, can't people just be where they are, enjoy the experience they're having, without having to hoard a bunch of digital recordings of it? I wanna smack people when they start putting their phones up in the air.
---GEC
I'm but the humble pupil, seeking to snatch the scratchbuilt pebble from the master's fully articulated hand
So, I haven't listened to a lot of Nine Inch Nails, but I guess "Download This Song" is one of theirs? Must be, just seems logical if you think about it. But 228.6mm Nails fans should heed the warnings in "Don't Download This Song":
"You start off stealing songs, then you're robbing liquor stores, and sellin' crack and running over school kids with your car..."
Violating international copyright law is clearly a slippery slope.
(P.S. - what's a motherf****er? Motherfuucker? And are we so childish now we can't say the big bad F word? Fucking pansies...)
---GEC
I'm but the humble pupil, seeking to snatch the scratchbuilt pebble from the master's fully articulated hand
Have you heard NIN latest Album? Looks like the joke is on his label. Its almost like he doesn't want to sell any CD's!
I am a NIN fan (I think I have 5 of his albums), don't get me wrong, I like his stuff. However his latest (not "With Teeth", that one wasn't bad), I wouldn't even download, let alone buy!
Now if only he could make his voice not sound like Weird Al's. /Listen to "Animal" and then to the Weird Al polka track where he sings part of "Animal" //Great song writer and composer... has no business being behind a mic.
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
Offtopic... (obviously)
If the price wasn't so high, maybe people would buy it again.
Hard to blame the record stores like yours im sure, something tells me you dont really set the prices. But if it wasn't for the music companies out there, I could walk into your store, and custom burn a CD with the songs of my choice for 10 bucks.
And i'd do it too, often. Keep that in mind.
I remember watching a documentary about Depeche Mode many years ago. The thing that I remember most was that over $1 million was made just in merchandise at a concert. I don't remember how much was made in actual ticket sales but I figure it's roughly comparable (assuming a T-shirt cost about as much as a concert ticket back then).
I've also read several times that artists prefer live appearances to making CDs because they personally get more money that way. And if you ever read Techdirt, you'll see that giving away the music (an infinite good) makes the finite good (the concert ticket) much more valuable.
Free Programming BookLearn to program
True, but I hardly believe that the framers of the constitution envisioned that 'limited use' would get interpreted as 120 years of copyright protection for a piece of work that is made by an anonymous author. That is right, an AC post is automatically copyrighted in the US for 120 years. You can not legally reprint an AC's post from Slashdot made today until the year 2127. It is even worse if I posted something today and than died 80 years from now. In that case, my Slashdot rantings would be under copyright until the year 2157. The fucking singularity could have been done and over with for a hundred years, and my random posts on Slashdot would still be automatically copyrighted.
Further, even if you could some how argue with a straight face 'limited time' meant "as long as congress keeps kicking the date out... which will be forever", that still ignores the whole "to promote the useful arts". It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that protecting an ACs post on Slashdot for 120 fucking years is not "promoting the useful arts". I really doubt that anyone creating copyrighted material would have been disuaded from producing that content if they had learned that the copyright would only last for 30 years, instead of 70 years AFTER that are dead and buried in the ground. If you need 70 years after you are dead to collect your due on your copyrighted material, I have a feeling it probably is not "useful art".
I don't want your music, Mr. Reznor.
Anyway, most of the music I *do* like is in the public domain. Something about the composers having died by the middle of the eighteenth century...
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
I saw NIN in concert last summer at Shoreline in Mountain View, CA. And about 20min into the set, security came, and escorted me to the coat check area, and made me surrender my digital camera till the end of the show. It was the ONLY show I went to all summer at that venue that no cameras was the policy. The venue itself doesn't have a policy at all. But the artists can have that as a restriction for their tour.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
You are losing sight of the original point TR is raising. Prices in AUSTRALIA are stupidly high. His original rant (back in May) was when he found out that his album was priced at AU$32 (US$17.50) while generic top40 fluff was sold at AU$21.
You think that's unreasonable?
Try goddamn 19.90 EUROS for Pretty hate machine in Finland. Boohoo poor australians have to pay all of $17.50 for it..
Can we have AUS pricing? Please?
Sure... if we can get the Euro selection for music ;)
The releases we get here isn't quite the full list available to the EU/US part of the world... Weighed heavily towards the cRap/R&B/TOp40 end of the charts, and less towards the indi/electronic/industrrial end.
For that selection, expect prices to start at AU$30 and rise.
I have found the trick is to bittorrent on the release-date, order the CD from the EU/US, then wait for it to arrive.
Sure... if we can get the Euro selection for music ;)
I have found the trick is to bittorrent on the release-date, order the CD from the EU/US, then wait for it to arrive.
I don't usually pay much attention to release dates so waiting the stuff to arrive for a week from some hong kong based mail order venture (cd-wow..) isn't a big problem. What is a problem is that I actually like Finnish bands a lot so I'm stuck with the local pricing that starts at 20e and MAYBE drops to 15e year from release. For reference, 20e is about 27.50 usd..
For that reason, itunes is actually much better deal for us than you might think.
DRM? yeah.
Relative crap sound quality? Check.
Same price as cd? You have to be kidding me.
9.90e for fresh cd vs 19.90e? At least you see clear difference between what you pay and what you get.
To add to your very correct comments, importing CD's is NOT cheap. Expect to double the cost of your goods if you can get them. So as cheap as mail-order looks on the surface you'll quickly learn the cost of importing.
Jeruvy
That can depend. One of the distributors I deal with will ship without cases to minimise shipping costs. Cuts shipping right down. The others are all happy to discuss ways of getting the price down.